Thank you for your interest in Adventure Cyclist magazine. We're changing our submissions policy in 2018 to accept queries and manuscripts on a rolling basis year-round. However, since our very small staff is primarily focused on producing each Adventure Cyclist, we'll be reviewing them on a roughly quarterly basis. This is a time-consuming process among our many other duties, so please be patient and bear with us.

Please make sure to thoroughly read our submissions information. Note: We only accept submissions through this Submittable portal.

Time Frame: If a story idea is accepted, the typical period of time until publication is approximately 12-18 months from the time of acceptance.

GUIDELINES FOR CONTRIBUTORSAdventure Cyclist is a bicycle-travel magazine published nine times yearly by Adventure Cycling Association, a nonprofit service organization for bicyclists. Adventure Cyclist is dedicated to publishing stories about bicycle travel and other recreational cycling subjects.

Adventure Cyclist generally uses two types of stories from free-lancers:

Feature-length stories. These should be about specific areas and must be accompanied by high-quality photos, both in terms of content, composition, and size.

The Final Mile. These are essays less about locale than about a singular experience while on a bicycle trip. These run at 1,200-1,500 words and don't require accompanying photos.

What we pay is negotiable, but generally ranges from $.25 to $.50 per word, depending on various factors. We buy first rights and will consider simultaneous submissions as long as we are informed of the other publications considering your manuscript. Your manuscript should be typed with single returns between paragraphs — no indentations — and single-spaced.

Photos: Feature submissions should be accompanied by
electronic images (300 dpi is standard) or color transparencies. Special
focus and humor pieces do not require photos, but if you have something
good, by all means, send it. And remember, we are always looking for
stunning verticals to go on the cover. (See more about photos here). When you send us photos through Submittable, you are only allowed to upload 3 files, however, if you create a .zip file from your collection, this will only count as one single file. If you don't know how to create a .zip file, use the links below or simply Google it:

Since Adventure Cyclist is the only U.S. magazine that regularly publishes bicycle-travel stories, we receive a tremendous amount of interest from many writers and photographers interested in this type of bicycling. Because of this amount of interest, we prefer to receive an inquiry about any story idea before we make any decisions to take the next step. If we like your idea, we can then move forward and make arrangements for the submission of materials.

If you decide to submit materials without an inquiry or an arrangement with the editorial team, the Adventure Cyclist staff does not guarantee that you will receive a response concerning your story nor will we guarantee the return of unsolicited materials.

Interested in Becoming a Adventure Cycling Guest Blogger? Here's What You Need to Know...

Thank you for your interest in the Adventure Cycling blog. We will review submissions as quickly as possible and keep you updated on our review status. This is a time-consuming process among our many other duties, so please be patient and bear with us.

GUIDELINES FOR CONTRIBUTORS

The Adventure Cycling blog generally uses five types of posts from guest bloggers:

Inspiring posts: An inspiring story about someone achieving something. The main message here is “if he can do it, so can I.” Click here for an example.

How-to/tutorial posts: This is one of the most popular post types and one that arguably brings the most value to our community. The most important thing to focus on while writing it is to give some specific information on how to do/perform/attain/reach whatever is promised in the title of the post. Videos and images work very well as additional resources for how-to posts. Click here for an example.

Standard list posts: A list post is another popular post type. The basic idea is that you take a topic or a problem and you try to come up with a number of separate solutions to it. List posts are so popular because they are extremely easy to follow. Each point is usually not related to the other ones, which means that even a distracted mind can get a lot of value from the whole post. Click here for an example.

Photo essay: A set or series of photographs that are intended to tell a story. Please include captions with all photographs.

No length requirements: Posts should simply be high quality and comprehensive. Supporting photos MUST be provided.

Not-So-Fine Print:

We prefer a well-written and high-quality original article (we all know how Google hates duplicate content).

We prefer an article that reflects the writing style/tone of the Adventure Cycling blogs.

Include a short author bio including a maximum of 1 anchor text link to your own website. Remember, Google frowns upon guest blogging as a link building technique.

To adhere to Google's guidelines for guest blogging, articles that are clearly intended as a link building scheme will be rejected. So please be thoughtful about any links you include in the articles you submit for consideration.

Include proper attribution of photos, data, quotations, and other third-party content referenced in the article.

Submissions must meet the Adventure Cycling blogging team's quality standards in order to get published.

Please avoid being self-promotional in the body of your article. Save that for your author bio.

The Adventure Cycling blogging team reserves the right to edit and adapt your guest blog content as we see fit, and update it in the future for accuracy and comprehensiveness.

Adventure Cycling reserves the right to include calls-to-action to Adventure Cycling content, including but not limited to email newsletters, ebooks, and other downloadable content.

Requests are reviewed on a daily basis (excluding weekends and public holidays) and may be modified to fit Adventure Cycling's preferred tone of voice. You will be notified by a member of Communications as to the outcome of your request. Requests must be made at least two weeks prior to requested date to assist with scheduling. Requests made with less than four business days’ notice cannot be guaranteed. The Communications Department reserves the right to reschedule or restrict posts, particularly around key annual promotions, to ensure that posts most relevant to the audience are given priority whilst keeping within acceptable daily post limits and in accordance with our content marketing strategy.

Requests are reviewed on each Thursday and we request a two-week lead time when possible to assist with scheduling. You will be notified by a member of Communications as to the outcome of your request. Be genuine. Be nice. Know your audience.

Requests made with less than four business days’ notice cannot be guaranteed. The Communications Department reserves the right to reschedule or restrict posts, particularly around key times (e.g. membership drives, USBRS campaign, holiday campaigns), to ensure that posts most relevant to the audience are given priority whilst keeping within acceptable daily post limits and in accordance with our content marketing strategy.

Crowd-sourced bike travel! BikeOvernights.org serves the bike travel community by sharing your short overnight bicycle adventures of one to two nights. Inspire others to travel by bike. Here's how to get started:

Read the latest posts.Read examples of bike overnights.Now share your own adventure here! Tell us the story and share your photos.

Have you had a great experience along a U.S. Bicycle Route? We want to hear about it! Whether you're riding a route, helping to designate a route, or managing a business along a route, your stories will help us illustrate the impacts of the U.S. Bicycle Route System and continue to grow and expand the network.

Please share any and all pertinent details through this form, and be sure to tell us which route you're describing and what location. If you have photos you would like to share with us, you'll find a handy tool below to upload those image files.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact the USBRS team at: usbrsinfo@adventurecycling.org. Thanks!